Maps of the Development of Vancouver
A Collection of Maps Available at UBC Vancouver's Koerner Library
Contents: About the Collection | About the Author | About Koerner Library |
About the Collection
As the cost of living in Vancouver continues to increase with no signs of reprieve, many are unaware of the history that has guided Vancouver through various stages of gentrification. Likewise, the stories behind Vancouver’s gentrification become lost in present-day issues, distracting from the policies and histories that have led to the gentrification of many neighbourhoods.
With questions concerning the rhetoric constructed to validate government decisions that lead to gentrification (especially around the pursuit of creating “livability” – see Tolfo & Doucet, 2022), maps provide an invaluable primary resource to visualize the changes to city infrastructure, land designation, transportation, etc. to visualize any changes made as a consequence of government policy or historical decisions. These maps can therefore show the “various exclusions within the present, which rely on erasure of the past.” (Tolfo & Doucet, 2022)
Inspired by the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, this collection intends to provide access to maps freely available through UBC’s Koerner Library, GIS that could be utilized to visually demonstrate the historical gentrification of Vancouver.
I would like to extend a special thank you to Vancouver Archives for providing the majority of the images for the maps in this collection, and for extending the rights to reuse these maps in this collection.
About the Author
My name is Charlie Fokkens, and I am a graduate student in the Master of Library and Information Studies program at UBC Vancouver. I created this collection through a Professional Experience course with UBC’s GIS Library. Though I have no formal background in geography, I am passionate about the way we build our communities and persuasive methods for delivering information. Thus, I was inspired to collect maps that could illustrate the change in Vancouver’s communities over time. The scope of this project was solely to create the collection to be analyzed by others, so I hope that if you have found this resource, you might find it useful to any research you might be conducting.
About Koerner Library
Koerner Library is located on the University of British Columbia Vancouver campus, which is on theTraditional, Ancestral, and Unceded territories of the Musqueam people. This library houses resources for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Should you wish to view the physical maps references in this collection, you may do so by visiting the the map collection on the second floor, and search for the item using the Call Number (available in each item’s page).
Technical Credits - CollectionBuilder
This digital collection is built with CollectionBuilder, an open source tool for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that is developed by faculty librarians at the University of Idaho Library following the Lib-STATIC methodology.
This site is built using CollectionBuilder-gh which utilizes the static website generator Jekyll and GitHub Pages to build and host digital collections and exhibits.